The morning after the fire, the sky over southern France burned with a different kind of light — one that felt like warning rather than warmth.
They'd been running for hours.
Amelia sat in the backseat of a stolen black Peugeot, wrapped in Dominic's jacket. Her body ached from the explosion, her lungs still tasted of ash, but her mind… her mind was racing. Questions screamed louder than the engine.
Dominic drove like the road belonged to him, one hand on the wheel, the other gripping a burner phone. He hadn't spoken in twenty minutes.
"What are we doing?" Amelia finally asked.
Dominic glanced at her through the rearview. "We're going dark. Completely. New route. New names. Maybe even new hair, if you're up for it."
"That's not what I meant," she snapped. "You said someone came for you. That they knew the location. That house was off every grid.
How?"
A beat.
Then: "Because someone wants to flush us out. Someone who knows how I think."
Amelia leaned forward. "Vivienne?"
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"She's not your ex. She's your handler."
He didn't deny it. Just handed her something — a scorched piece of hardware, half-melted and blinking red. It looked like a small external drive.
"I found this in the wreckage," he said. "It wasn't ours. Someone planted it after the explosion."
Amelia turned it over in her hands. There was a symbol etched into the metal — a raven with one wing torn.
She looked up. "You know this?"
"It's part of an old signature. A rogue agency called Halberd. Zahir worked with them before he started the Manticore division."
"And it survived the blast?"
"It didn't have to. It transmitted coordinates before it burned."
Her breath caught. "Coordinates to what?"
He gave her a look.
"To where this all began."
They arrived at an abandoned train station in a sleepy Croatian town just after midnight.
The air was thick with fog and secrets. Amelia stepped onto the platform, her boots echoing against the crumbling tile, her every breath visible in the cold.
Dominic walked ahead without speaking, pulling a crowbar from beneath his coat. He led her to a rusted bench beneath a shattered light post.
"There's a hatch under this," he said.
They pried it open. The smell of mildew and iron hit first, then the sight — a narrow tunnel spiraling into the dark.
"Ladies first?" he joked without smiling.
They climbed down.
The tunnel opened into a corridor of shattered lights and vines. Nature had tried to reclaim it, but the steel refused to rust completely.
Dominic found a keypad on a steel door, its surface covered in dust.
He wiped it off, revealing a screen — still glowing faintly.
"It's still got power," Amelia said.
Dominic didn't respond. He simply keyed in a six-digit sequence. The door groaned open.
Behind it: a massive concrete chamber filled with rusted equipment, sealed crates, and—at the center—a long table with manila folders scattered across it.
Amelia walked up to one and flipped it open.
The name at the top stopped her breath.
Kestrel Moreau.
Beneath it, a photo of a young man — raven-dark hair, cold blue eyes, and a smile that didn't reach them. The same eyes she'd seen in the photo Vivienne had burnt.
"Vivienne's brother," Amelia whispered.
Dominic joined her. "He was a triple asset.
Worked for three agencies at once. Then he vanished. They said he went mad. Some say Zahir turned him."
"But why is he here? In this folder?"
Dominic pointed to a red seal. "Because this place was part of something called Black Circuit. A backdoor division to Manticore.
Unauthorized. Dangerous. And Kestrel was their prototype."
"Prototype for what?"
"Obedient monsters."
They spent the next hour digging through the files. The pieces came fast, but the picture remained unclear.
A map of neural pathways enhanced by nano-serums. A transcript of an interrogation with a girl who described memories that weren't hers. A list of "awakened" agents, most labeled as "terminated."
And in the middle of it all, a personal letter. Dated fourteen years ago. Addressed to someone Amelia knew by name only:
Dr. Elias Rourke.
Her father.
The letter was short:
You're playing God again, Elias. The human brain can't hold this much truth. Or trauma. She's too young. If you don't wipe her now, she'll remember everything before the age of ten. Including what we did in Marseille. I won't cover for you again.
— K
Amelia stepped back like she'd been slapped.
Dominic reached out, but she shook her head.
"I don't understand," she whispered. "Why would he want to erase my memory? What happened in Marseille?"
Dominic said nothing. Just watched her face shift—grief, confusion, terror.
And something deeper.
Recognition.
A memory flickered in her eyes like a film reel jerking to life.
A man's voice. A dark room. Blood on her hands.
Her own scream.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them rumbled.
Lights flickered. Sirens began to chirp — faint, distant, electronic.
Dominic turned sharply. "Someone triggered the backup sensor."
"They know we're here."
"No," he said. "They knew we'd come here."
He grabbed Amelia's hand.
"Run."
They raced through the tunnel, lungs burning, as footsteps echoed behind them — boots, deliberate, fast.
At the ladder, Dominic turned and fired twice down the tunnel. A grunt of pain.
"Go!" he shouted.
Amelia climbed, heart pounding, and broke through the hatch to find nightfall had thickened. Rain poured.
Dominic emerged seconds later, blood on his hand.
"You're hurt."
"Doesn't matter."
He pulled her into the trees behind the station just as black SUVs screeched into view.
Men in suits fanned out. Silent. Precise.
Dominic leaned close, lips near her ear.
"They're Halberd. Not cops. Not military."
"Then what are they?"
"Ghosts."
Back in the chamber, a lone figure entered through the steel door.
He wore all black. No mask. No gloves.
He walked to the center table and picked up the folder on Kestrel Moreau.
Then he smiled.
"Hello again, Dominic," he whispered.
Then he burned the file.